


It's Little And Broken But Still Good, Yeah Still Good

by MadGirl_SpaceGirl_StarGirl



Category: The Rookie (TV 2018)
Genre: AU kind of from season two, Assault, But I'm going to make them suffer, CHENFORD FOR LIFE, Child Abuse, Did I mention I ship Tim and Lucy, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/F, F/M, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Kidnapping, M/M, Murder, Sexual Assault, Slow - ish burn, Smut if I can get over being an awkward Jackass, Tim being a good dad/friend, i love these characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:21:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22963051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadGirl_SpaceGirl_StarGirl/pseuds/MadGirl_SpaceGirl_StarGirl
Summary: It starts with one bad day.When Tim Bradford invites his rookie over after a tough shift he expects it to be a quiet night, where he gets a bad neck ache from sleeping on the couch.What he doesn't expect, is to find the only teenager he can tolerate, bleeding out on his bathroom floor.What comes after brings, old enemies, old friends and new dangers crashing down on the T.O and his rookie.And to top it all off, along with dodging the bullets and trying to keep people alive, Tim finds himself forced to confront feelings he swore would never see the light of day...
Relationships: Angela Lopez/Wesley Evers, John Nolan/Original Female Character(s), Tim Bradford/Lucy Chen
Comments: 7
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter 1

It had been a rough day.

Two multi car pile ups with three dead.

Three overdoses, two dead.

And a drive by shooting.

One dead.

A six year old girl.

She had just been walking to school.

Walking to school with her mom and her light up sneakers and her pink backpack.

The mom was fine.

The little girl bled out in Chen’s arms.

So yeah, it had been a rough day.

And so, it wouldn’t have surprised Tim Bradford if Chen had shown up at his place.

But she didn’t.

Instead, he found himself walking up to her apartment at 11:30pm, six pack in one hand and pizza box in the other.

Now that did surprise him.

He wasn’t sure why he was here.

But here he was.

Knock, knock, knock.

Or rather (given that his hands were full); kick, kick, kick.

“Open up boot!”

She had been crying.

It was painfully obvious, with her red rimmed eyes, fresh tear tracks and the way she had to sniff before she said in a voice thick with supressed emotion

“Tim – I mean Officer Bradford? Wh-what are you…?”

Lucy tailed off as, in answer to the unfinished question, Bradford held up the beer and pizza.

“Figured you could use this.”

Lucy sniffed again and stared up at him for a moment, before he raised an eyebrow and said

“You gonna let me in or what?”

“Shit, yeah, yeah come in. Sorry.”

Lucy stepped aside and Tim walked into his rookie’s apartment.

As apartments of single girls went, it wasn’t too bad.

Kind of small, and a bit cluttered but it was nice enough.

He walked to the couch and set the pizza box and beer on the coffee table, then waited almost impatiently for Chen to join him.

Lucy walked over and sat beside him, as Tim opened a beer and gestured to her remote control.

“You mind?”

Lucy shook her head and Tim turned the T.V on, hopping channels till he found a ball game.

They sat in silence for a long time.

But it was comfortable silence.

The two spent so long sat in the shop together that they were used to each other’s presence and the silence didn’t bother them.

At least it didn’t until Tim realised that although he was halfway through his third slice of pizza, Lucy hadn’t touched her first one and instead was holding it in her hands and staring at the wall.

“Boot. Eat the pizza or I’m gonna shove it down your throat.”

“I’m not hungry.” Lucy muttered and Tim put his beer down.

“Boot. Chen. Lucy. Lucy look at me.”

Slowly, she turned her head to look at her T.O, her eyes shining with fresh unshed tears.

“It wasn’t your fault. The kid it – she died. And yeah that’s sad and it sucks and I know it hurts like hell. I know in your head you’re thinking ‘I did everything I could, why isn’t she here? What did I do wrong?’ Right?”

Tim waited until Lucy nodded.

“You want the answer?”

Another nod.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. You did everything right. But sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes they die anyway. And then you’ve got a choice. Three options. Option one; You either sit here in the dark and let it eat away at you until you die. Option two; you act like everything’s fine until you crack. Or you let yourself feel it, you cry, you scream you do whatever you gotta do and then you move on. Now I know you, you’re not the kind of cop who can pretend she doesn’t feel anything. So which is it? Option A, you sit in the dark and die, or Option B, you feel it and then you move. On. Time to choose boot.”

Lucy took a deep breath as a tear finally broke free of the unshed wall in her eyes.

“I don’t wanna die.”

“Good. So you feel it.”

Lucy sat for a moment, her left leg bouncing up and down. Then she stood and started pacing, clenching and unclenching her hands until suddenly, out of nowhere she whirled around and punched the wall.

And again.

And again.

And again and again and again and again until flakes of plaster were tumbling to the ground.

Tim was on his feet now, moving behind Lucy. He tried to catch her arms but Lucy shook him off, too intent on letting all her emotions out by punching a hole in the wall.

“Boot! Boot! Goddammit!”

Throwing caution out the window, Tim wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her bodily away from the wall.

“Let me go! Let go of me!” Lucy screamed, thrashing about wildly but Tim wouldn’t. He just adjusted his hold so that Lucy’s back was firmly against his chest and his arms kept hers pinned to her body.

“Chen! Lucy, Lucy, LUCY! Lucy breathe! Just breathe.”

Slowly Lucy began to stop fighting against him.

Instead of feeling her struggling against him, Tim could feel the way her body shook as she was over taken by sobs.

She squirmed slightly, and Tim loosened his hold slightly, worried he was holding her too tight or something.

But Lucy just turned in his arms and buried her face into his shirt as she cried.

“Uh…”

Tim wasn’t sure what to do.

His arms hovered uncertainly for a moment before some kind of muscle memory kicked in from his time with Isobel.

One arm settled around her shoulders and the other around her lower back and he simply held her as she cried.

After a while, the tears seemed to subside and Lucy pulled back slightly to look up at him.

“Feel better?” he asked a little gruffly.

“Yeah.” It suddenly seemed to hit Lucy, the position she was in, and she practically leaped away from him, straightening her clothes and wiping her eyes saying

“Shit, god I’m sorry that was…”

“Don’t sweat it Chen. You’re not the first rookie I’ve seen cry.”

“Yeah but…”

Lucy trailed off, clearly embarrassed and both she and Tim looked away from each other.

Tim turned back first.

“Grab whatever shit you need for a night and follow me.”

“Excuse me?” Now Lucy was just perplexed.

“It’s pretty obvious I shouldn’t leave you alone and there’s no way in hell I’m sleeping on your crappy couch. We’re going for a drive then you’re staying at my place. Get your crap and move.”

Acting purely out of the instinct of following his orders Lucy flitted around her apartment grabbing various things and shoving them into her gym bag.

When she looked up again, Tim had gone, clearly having gone down to his car.

She locked up and hurried down the stairs after him, to find Bradford leaning against his truck.

“You got everything?”

She nodded.

“Coz I’m not making two trips.” Tim warned and Lucy nodded again.

“Yeah, yeah I got everything.”

“Let’s go.”

* * *

They drove around for a while in silence.

Tim found a rock station and they just listened to the music as they drove through L.A.

Eventually they pulled up in a beachside parking lot.

Tim left the radio on and the two of them just sat looking at the water.

After what felt like forever, Tim spoke, almost nervous with what he was about to say.

“It was two days after I got my short sleeves.”

Lucy didn’t say anything but turned slightly in her seat to look at him. Tim couldn’t bring himself to look at her as he ploughed on with his story.

“We got a callout about a possible attempted suicide. The Northholt bridge. I’d dealt with jumpers before but…”

Tim swallowed.

“It was this woman. A kid really, she couldn’t have been more than seventeen. She was stood up there… and she had a baby in her arms. I found out later it was her baby, two weeks old. A boy. She called him Jason.”

Lucy listened with baited breath, afraid to speak in case Tim stopped talking.

“I was faster than my T.O, I got there first. He felt that because I made first contact I needed to stay with her. I spent over an hour trying to talk this girl down. I thought I’d done it as well. She got calmer, I thought she was going to climb back off the wall.”

Tim sighed and a hard look crossed his face.

“Then her father showed up. They were supposed to keep him at the cordon, but he knocked out an officer and pushed his way through. Ran at us, shouting all sorts of shit at his daughter… and she jumped.”

“Oh god…” Listen whispered “Did… did she make it?”

“Yeah. Yeah she made it.”

But there was clearly something he wasn’t saying.

“The… the baby?”

Tim shook his head.

“The impact into the water broke his neck. He was dead before I even got to the water.”

Lucy didn’t know what to say.

“I… uh…” Tim sniffed and grit his teeth for a moment “I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t. Not for days. Isobel was on an undercover gig, I was on my own. I got low. I thought I couldn’t tell anyone, or they’d think I was weak.”

A small sad smile then came onto Tim’s face.

“But Isobel knew. The second she walked in the door. Gave me the same speech I just gave you. And she was right.”

Now, Tim finally looked at Lucy.

“We’re cops. We’re not robots. We see the worst shit day in and day out. If you don’t feel it, if you can’t let yourself, then you’re in the wrong job.”

They exchanged a look for a long moment. Tim looked like telling the story had aged him ten years but at the same time had taken a massive weight off of his shoulders. Lucy’s eyes were shining.

Eventually Tim looked away giving Lucy a sneaking opportunity to wipe her eyes on her sleeves.

“Feel like you might be able to sleep now?”

“Yeah. Yeah let’s go.”

They drove in silence and it took Lucy a moment to remember that Tim was taking them both back to his place.

He pulled up outside his home and they both got out. Tim grabbed Lucy’s bag from the back seat despite her protests that she was

“a big girl who can carry my own bag dammit!”

All he responded with was

“Quit your whining boot.”

Before he walked inside, Lucy trailing behind him, suddenly a little nervous. She hesitated on the doorstep.

Was this a good idea?

_‘Stop it!’_ she thought at herself furiously _‘Don’t make it weird. He’s just being a good friend – T.O – whatever.’_

Squaring her shoulders, Lucy marched through the open front door, only to find her bag on the floor, and Tim standing stock still with his gun drawn.

At once, Lucy pulled her own weapon, falling into step behind her training officer.

Tim pressed a finger to his lips and then pointed towards a light coming from down the hall.

“Bathroom” he whispered.

The two cops crept down the hall until they were outside the bathroom door, that was open enough that a sliver of light was bleeding through.

“LAPD! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!”

There was no response.

Until a voice called out, weak and strained;

“Not gonna shoot me, are you Bradford?”

Even though his back was mostly to her, Lucy saw all the colour drain from her T.O’s face.

Tim shoved his gun into the back of his waistband and yanked the bathroom door open.

“Emily?”


	2. Sorry About The Mess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily makes a mess.   
> Lucy takes charge.  
> Tim tries not to have a heart attack.

“Emily?”

“Hey Bradford. Sorry about the mess.”

Lucy appeared in the doorway behind Tim who was on his knees beside a girl.

She was young, maybe seventeen or eighteen. She was leaning against the bathroom cabinet. Slumped, was more like it. Dirty blonde hair shoved under a baseball cap, with electric blue streaks weaving through the blonde. Her pale face was bruised on the left-hand side.

What was more concerning however, was the blood pooling around her.

As Lucy put her gun away, she noticed that Tim hadn’t moved, frozen in place holding the girl’s hand.

“Tim?”

Nothing.

“Tim?”

It was like he didn’t even hear her.

“Officer Bradford!”

Tim jerked like he’d been slapped and looked around at Lucy.

“I’m gonna call an ambulance but you need to get that bleeding under control. Now.”

It felt strange, like the roles had been reversed as Tim nodded at her instructions and moved grabbing a first aid kit from under the sink as Lucy pulled out her phone.

“Okay Emily? Emily talk to me, tell me what happened.”

“Got stupid. Got stabbed.” Emily said with a his off pain as Tim opened up her hoodie and lifted her blood stained t-shirt.

“Okay. Okay, Em, I’m gonna lie you down okay, this is gonna hurt like hell but it will help alright. On three, ready? 1, 2, 3!”

Tim held an arm round the teen’s back and slowly lay her to the tile floor, ignoring the twinge in his chest as she cried out at the movement.

“Attagirl, there we go, it’s done now.”

“Ambulance is fifteen minutes out.” Lucy had reappeared in the doorway and Tim growled.

“Dammit, no, fifteen minutes means at least twenty and she doesn’t have that kind of time. I left my keys by the door, boot you’re driving.”

“On it!” Lucy was already in motion as Tim scooped one hand under Emily’s back and the other under her knees, hoisting her up.

“ARGH CHRIST!” she cried out, the pain written all over her face as Tim carried her out of his house.

“I know Em, I know, you can beat me to death for this later okay? I’ll make sure my Sergeant doesn’t arrest you for it. That a deal? You stay with me and you can kick my ass when all this is over, do we have a deal?”

“Uh huh! Just don’t let me die on your crappy bathroom floor.”

How the teenager had the wherewithal to crack a joke in her current state, Tim didn’t know. He lay her in the back seat and climbed in beside her, keeping pressure over the wound in her side.

“Boot, step on it!” Tim yelled as Emily’s eyes seemed to lose focus for a moment.

“Emily? Hey Em! Em, I want you to keep looking at me alright?”

“Brad – Bradford?”

“Yeah, I’m right here kid.”

“I don’t… I don’t… I don’t wanna die.” The young girl’s voice cracked.

“Hey, hey don’t you do that Emily! Don’t you give up on me! We had a deal remember? You stay with me and you get to kick my ass, remember?”

But Emily didn’t answer.

“Emily?”

Her breathe was starting to wheeze.

“Emily, can you hear me?”

Her body was shaking.

“Em? Em come on, talk to me!”

Her eyelids fluttered.

Once.

“Emily?”

Twice.

“Em?”

Closed.

* * *

“Tim?”

_“I don’t wanna die.”_

“Tim?”

_“I don’t wanna die.”_

“Tim?”

_“I don’t wanna die.”_

“Tim?!”

“Sorry what?”

Lucy smiled as she sat beside him, offering him a cup.

“Coffee.”

“Oh, thanks.”

But he just held the coffee cup in his hands, staring at the smears of Emily’s blood that were coming off his fingers onto the Styrofoam.

“She’s gonna be okay.”

“You don’t know that.”

“She will” Lucy insisted “Look I don’t know the girl, but I can tell she’s a fighter. Hell, she must have balls of steel if she’s willing to break into Tim Bradford’s house.”

Tim gave a tired chuckle.

“That she does. Girl almost broke my nose first time I met her.”

“How…” Lucy hesitated “How _did_ you meet her?”

Tim sighed.

“Climbing through the window of Havenside Treatment House.”

Lucy’s eyebrows raised slightly.

“She was trying to breakout of rehab?”

Tim shook his head.

“No. No, she was trying to break in.”

Before Lucy could ask anymore, a doctor walked into the waiting room saying

“Emily Carrigan?”

“Yeah!” At once Tim was on his feet “Yeah I’m her – I uh, was the one who brought her in.”

“Are you family?” The grey haired man asked, looking at his clipboard.

“No Sir, she has no family, technically speaking.”

The doctor looked up and quirked an eyebrow.

“Technically speaking?”

Tim glanced at Lucy, who took the immediate hint and walked back to the chairs.

“Em’s… Emily’s father is in jail, her mother surrendered her parental rights three years ago. Legally she’s emancipated.”

“I see. How old is Miss Carrigan?”

“Erm… she must be… seventeen now, I think?”

“Any idea when her birthday is?”

“December 9th.” Tim didn’t even hesitate.

“I see.” The Doctor sighed and removed his glasses “Listen, Officer Bradford. This is an unusual situation. Legally I need a medical proxy. Miss Carrigan is still unconscious. It was touch and go for a while, but for now she is stable, however should that change, I need someone who can legally make medical decisions on her behalf.”

“But, she’s emancipated, doesn’t that mean she can make her own choices?”

“In most circumstances yes, but legally she is still a child, which means that someone has to act on her medical decisions.” The doctor gestured to a piece of paper on his clipboard.

“Sign this and you accept legal responsibility for any medical decisions until she is eighteen.”

“Wait, wait what?!”

Tim could feel the shock all over his face.

“It’s a temporary guardianship form.”

The doctor handed him the form.

“Take it, read it through and bring it back to the nurses station and then I’ll take you to ICU to see her.” 

With that, the doctor turned on his heel and strode away, leaving Tim with an unpleasant dumbstruck feeling.

In a kind of numb state, Tim walked back to the seats and all but collapsed into the chair beside Lucy.

“Sooooo” Lucy started with a small, hesitant smile on her face “I swear I wasn’t listening, but I may have heard something about ‘temporary guardianship’?”

“Uh huh.” Was all Tim could manage.

“Damn. That’s…” Lucy couldn’t think of how to say it so just puffed out a huge exhale of air.

“Do me a favour boot?”

“Yeah?”

“Read me that form. Might be less chance of me having a heart attack if you do it.”

“Yes Sir.”

* * *

"Tim?"

Tim looked up at the familiar voice and shook Lucy awake. 

Angela and Nolan were stood at the entrance to the secluded waiting area. 

"You look like hell. Both of you." Harper said bluntly as the pair approached and Tim rolled his eyes. 

"Thanks."

"Welcome." 

Tim looked at Angela.

"They finished processing at my house?"

"Almost. That's kind of why we're here." 

Angela looked somewhere at an intersection of worried and uncomfortable. Tim frowned and folded his arms. 

"Spit it out Angela." 

"How well do you know the kid?" 

"I've known her since she was fourteen, the hell does that have to do with anything?"

Angela held up an evidence bag, 

"We found this in her backpack. Any idea why she'd be carrying it?"

Tim had no answer. 

He just stared through the plastic at the gun inside. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so it's probably pretty obvious but I am just making up laws as I go along.   
> It's all fiction I mean no disrespect or anything.   
> But I need the law about guardianship to exist for my story.   
> So yeah.   
> I regret nothing.   
> Let me know what ya think.   
> More soon.   
> Geronimo xx

**Author's Note:**

> Soooooo who's Emily?  
> I love the rookie so much and will happily go down with the Chenford ship.   
> I regret nothing.   
> Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear from y'all.  
> More soon.  
> Geronimoxx


End file.
